You make my point. Obama screws up and everyone's an apologist. Palin screws up and it proves she's dumber than a bag of hammers. You do see the hypocrisy, no? Frankly, these two seem to be in a race to see who can keep their feet in their mouths the longest. The only difference is that everyone apologizes for Obama (except for Obama himself.) The scary thing is is that one of these fools is president.
I believe the president knows what year it is and that makes me an apologist? I also believe Sarah Palin knows what year it is. Does that get me into the Tea Party?
Anyway, my point is that while it's fun to blame the lamestream media, gotcha journalism and limpwristed Hollywood lefties, plenty of conservatives don't like her either.
Jack Welch was on the CNN the other night and he said something like "she's not a serious person. She's not a politician, she's a celebrity". I thought that was a good way to put it.
Anyway, just for interest's sake, what I'd like to know is who here would honestly say "I think Sarah Palin is the best candidate for President."
I know, I know, she's not even officially a candidate, but it'd be interesting to know who among her defenders would actually vote for her.
Sarah Palin while likely not stupid in every sense isn't nearly smart enough to be trusted to run a country plus her perception with every other nation in the world as well as half of her own country is that she is a bumbling idiot, with a daughter that was on some dancing show, who continually puts her foot into her mouth for extended periods of time. The scary thing for the Republicans is that she is still considered a contender for the candidacy of the President of the United States.
After that I think that it is hilarious when people criticize Obama for golfing when there were two wars going on (I don't consider Libya a war until boots are on the ground). What do you expect him to do, go over there and start kicking in doors himself? There is only so much work that someone can do in the course of a week, so if he goes to the golf course and takes 4 hours out of his day in order to relax and play the course - then what is the real harm being done? Stephen Harper went to a hockey game in Boston, this likely took more time than the average round of golf, does that make him a bad Prime Minister? The answer should of course be no.
Granted we have heard the same thing with regards to Bush who Michael Moore would like to have you believe didn't work a single day in his life and vacationed throughout his entire presidency.
Sarah Palin while likely not stupid in every sense isn't nearly smart enough to be trusted to run a country plus her perception with every other nation in the world as well as half of her own country is that she is a bumbling idiot, with a daughter that was on some dancing show, who continually puts her foot into her mouth for extended periods of time.
Run on sentence. The scary thing about Lefties is they don't know when to shut up.
There's about a 50% probability those "anonymous" quotes are fabricated anyway but both sides of the political spectrum find them useful in reinforcing stereotypes, so it's off to the races.
Cowperson
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Dear Lord, help me to be the kind of person my dog thinks I am. - Anonymous
I don't think Palin is dumb. You don't get to be as successful as she is by being dumb. You get there by being shallow, dangerously ambitious, catty, non-intellectually curious, unworldly and gullible.
Palin is what Plato warned us about thousands of years ago in the Republic (I paraphrase): those who want power really, really badly are the last one's that should get it.
I don't understand why it's a given that a successful person isn't dumb. I've met several very successful people who lack intellectual capacity. By that I mean understanding complex concepts. Sometimes a person isn't smart enough to realize how stupid they are, which gives them confidence, which gives people confidence in them. That makes them a good candidate for success. I find that to be a fairly regular occurrence in humanity.
She might be average among the general population, which is drastically low for anyone in the conversation of Presidential candidates. I think you description of Palin is better suited for GW Bush, who actually wasn't dumb.
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As you can see, I'm completely ridiculous.
The Following User Says Thank You to Weiser Wonder For This Useful Post:
I was kind of wondering myself about what sort of recreation is acceptable to a president, then. What if he...went for a 3 hour long bike ride? Preferred to take hikes. Liked fishing? Maybe watching a hockey game?
If he's not allowed to golf once a month without getting into trouble (don't know about you, but if I only got one day a month off...) what IS he allowed to do that won't get him into 'trouble'...?
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It is true that most if not all Presidents golf. But the teleprompter-in-office has simple out spent and out golfed them all...and I mean THEM ALL!!!
Once again HOZ throws another arm waving fit, either intentionally or unintentionally mis-characterizing the facts to suit his agenda.
As per FactCheck.org, Obama spent less time on vacation during his first year as President than any of the last 3 Republican Presidents.
Obama spent all or part of 26 days on vacation in his first year, compared to H. W. Bush's 40, Reagan's 42, and W. Bush's 69. No reason to think that pattern varied significantly in his second year.
The golfing stat doesn't prove Obama wasn't working as hard as other Presidents, it just proves that when he is relaxing he's more likely to golf. OH NOS!!!!!!
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I was kind of wondering myself about what sort of recreation is acceptable to a president, then. What if he...went for a 3 hour long bike ride? Preferred to take hikes. Liked fishing? Maybe watching a hockey game?
If he's not allowed to golf once a month without getting into trouble (don't know about you, but if I only got one day a month off...) what IS he allowed to do that won't get him into 'trouble'...?
While I don't have his high fallutin' debate tactics like screaming insults at myself to belittle my opponent's presumed positions, I would like to expand on HOZ's points. While I fear I may not be able to hold up to his high standards of discourse befitting moderators and fellow posters on CalgaryPuck, I hope I can augment his arguments without dumbing them down.
Economy:
The United States is "only inches away from ceasing to be a free market economy.”
-Mitt Romney
Presumably this argument is rooted in the stimulus package, health care reforms, tax increases and regulations.
Stimulus package: 40% was tax cuts
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Economist
The Obama stimulus package had $237 billion in tax cuts, and more than $100 billion of those were targeted at lower and middle class households
"Government takeover" conjures a European approach in which the government owns the hospitals and the doctors are public employees. But the law Congress passed, parts of which have already gone into effect, relies largely on the free market. Critics of the law are correct that it significantly increases government regulation of health insurers. But it is, at its heart, a system that relies on private companies:
• Employers continue to provide health insurance to the majority of Americans through private insurance companies.
• Contrary to the claim, more people will get private health coverage. The law sets up "exchanges" where private insurers will compete to provide coverage to people who don't have it.
• The government will not seize control of hospitals or nationalize doctors.
• The law does not include the public option, a government-run insurance plan that would have competed with private insurers.
• The law gives tax credits to people who have difficulty affording insurance, so they can buy their coverage from private providers on the exchange. But here too, the approach relies on a free market with regulations, not socialized medicine.
...the tax burden has fallen modestly in recent years, from 31.2 percent in 2006 to 27.2 percent in 2011.
And as we concluded recently, the U.S. tax burden isn’t just hovering around a historical low -- it’s also low compared to other advanced industrialized nations. In a 2006 international comparison, 25 nations had a higher percentage of taxes compared to GDP than the U.S., while just four -- Mexico, Japan, Korea and Turkey -- had a lower percentage.
Certainly, different groups could measure freedom differently. But let’s look at what Heritage concluded.
The U.S. ranked ninth out of 179 nations on the list, with a score that placed it near the top of the "mostly free" category. The only nations to be considered more "free" than the U.S. were, in descending order, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Canada, Ireland, and Denmark.
If the results of this study -- which, we’ll remind readers, was produced by a staunchly conservative think tank -- suggest that the U.S. is on the verge of socialism, then Lenin must be partying in his mauseoleum. For the U.S. to fall into the "mostly unfree" category, which is only the third-lowest category in the study, it would have to drop a whopping 83 slots, to a perch below such nations as Albania, Rwanda and Kazakhstan."
